Saturday, September 12, 2015

Here it is, September. Time for the fall migration and Beckham Bird Club's Breakfast with the Birds. So we pulled in at Beckley Creek Park at 8 am for a cloudy, windy, chilly morning. It's the first time I've used the word "chilly" in some time, but my single sweatshirt really didn't feel like enough before the coffee arrived. It was nice to have some new folks join us. I must admit that fall migration isn't my all time favorite time to go birding. Some of our friends are excited to see warblers coming through again, but I've always had trouble seeing little warblers in the leaves, let alone recognizing their fall plumage.

Down through the wetlands, to find a small group of "mutt ducks" on the pond, put there, so someone heard, to help control the duck weed. Yeah, right. Marching on to Floyd's Fork, where the action starts to pick up. A Green Heron flew beneath the bridge, landing on the rocks beside the river. Funny how hard he was to find for the folks who didn't see him fly there in the first place. A quick jab into the water and he comes up with a small fish to snack on.

A little farther down the river a Great Blue Heron preens his feathers standing in the shallow water.

About this time, the expert sharp-eyed and sharp-eared birders in the group started finding lots of littler warblers. Turn on the screech owl recording and let's see how many we can draw in! Well, I didn't find many of them, but this lovely Yellow-billed Cuckoo sat on his branch long enough for me to see and get a photo of it - my first! A Redstart looks like a mini-Oriole but wouldn't sit still like the Cuckoo.

The standard little birds flocked in - Downy Woodpeckers, Chickadees, Nuthatch and Titmice. They are the tough little guys who stay all year long.

Beckley Creek Park reliably has Red-headed Woodpeckers along Floyd's Fork. Today we even saw a little juvenile with a black head chasing his parents around for a handout.

You know how it is - I see a bird and try to get a photo of it whether I know what it is or not. At this time in the morning, they were calling out Tennessee Warbler and Nashville Warbler, along with Chestnut-sided Warbler and several kinds of Vireo. I'm not sure what this guy is.

But when I couldn't find the target bird, there were always thousands of yellow wildflowers. It's funny that they are all the exact shade of yellow, no matter what the species!

Saturday, September 05, 2015

In Vermont, two of our favorite things to do are searching for covered bridges and waterfalls. On our last day of vacation, we got to do both at one time. It took a little longer than anticipated, since we noticed the gas light was on and had to go back into Stowe and find a gas station to make sure we didn't run dry out in the middle of nowhere.

Our final waterfall was Sterling Falls, part of the Sterling Falls Gorge Natural Area, a conservation area acquired from the family of IBM's Tom Watson and maintained by six different conservation organizations in Vermont. There are several hiking trails, but the most popular, I would guess, leads to the gorge and has the added attraction of interpretive signs. Since Dick and I are involved with such interpretation we really appreciated them. If I could find a way to contact the right group, I would let them know. All week, I've wished we had a geologist along. Somehow, I'd always thought Vermont was full of granite, and not much else. Internet research shows this is absolutely wrong, but I still would appreciate more guidance.

For example, did you know that a
gorge consists of a series of moderate-sized falls, cascades, and
pools. A gorge is a section of a stream channel with continuous rock
walls which are at least 10 feet high on both sides. A small gorge has
walls under 40 feet high and a large gorge has walls over 40 feet
high. The walls at Sterling Falls Gorge range from as low as 11 feet at
the northern end to over 50 feet at the southern end. Several
falls and cascades occur at Sterling Falls Gorge Natural Area. The
difference between the two is distinguished by how the water falls from
the bedrock exposure. A falls is a vertical or near vertical drop which
is at least 3 feet high. The water shoots outward and falls without
touching the rock. A cascade is a bedrock exposure which is not vertical
but at either a high or a low angle and the water remains in contact
with the bedrock. A small falls or cascade is under 20 feet and a large
one is over 20 feet.

The rocks of Sterling Falls Gorge are schists of the Camels Hump Group which are a type of metamorphic rock. Metamorphic rocks form from other rocks (igneous, sedimentary, or other metamorphic rocks) by physical and chemical changes in their composition. Temperature and pressure are the main controls in metamorphism. One of the most obvious features about the schist is the near vertical planar surfaces in the rock. This is called schistosity. Schistosity is the result of movement and crystallization of minerals which occurs during metamorphism. Minerals, such as mica, recrystallize and orient themselves according to slippage along the bedding planes of the rock. Is that a cool word or what!

Some of the fallen rocks are in fact large slabs of fallen wall but others were transported when the stream had much more energy. Perhaps in the spring, during the snowmelt season, the stream's discharge was at a much greater volume. The measure of a stream's ability to transport a certain maximum grain size of sediment is referred to as a stream's competence. Looking at the wide variety of sizes of material in Sterling Brook, it is obvious that its competence varies greatly with the season.

How do you think schistosity affects the credibility of the rock? Is it more credible with vertical or horizontal schistosity? The schisosity is a plane of weakness in the rock. It allows water to penetrate and more easily erode the rock than if it were a more homogenous "harder" rock. I love learning new vocabulary! You think of rocks being hard, but "credible?"

While watching Vermont PBS in the evening this week, we heard they were offering a special activity for their members at Smugglers' Notch Resort this Saturday, including a visit from the Vermont Institute of Natural Science - VINS - which rehabs raptors along with many other things. Well, I couldn't pass that by, could I? The presenter did a marvelous job, and it's always reassuring to hear someone else echo the things we always say about raptors. She even told the story about Kestrels being able to track mice because they can see mouse pee glowing in ultraviolet light, which they are able to see!

Thursday, September 03, 2015

Burlington is the largest city in Vermont, and a delightful spot on the shores of Lake Champlain, so today we went to explore it. The Ethan Allen III took us out into the lake towards an invisible horizon, covered in haze. Lake Champlain is the largest fresh water lake, after the five Great Lakes, although it was salt water when the glaciers melted, and home to beluga whales.

For some reason, I'd always thought Vermont to be made of granite, but now I know it has all the shales, sandstones and other sedimentary rocks, tilted off the horizontal, as we've seen in other states. In fact, only that part of the state where granite is quarried for tombstones has much granite at all.

Another lake steamer, the Ticonderoga, is no longer on the lake, but is displayed on land at Shelburne Museum. Electra Havemeyer Webb (1888-1960) was a pioneering collector of
American folk art and founded Shelburne Museum in 1947. The daughter of
H.O. and Louisine Havemeyer, important collectors of European and Asian
art, she exercised an independent eye and passion for art, artifacts,
and architecture celebrating a distinctly American aesthetic. When creating the Museum she took the imaginative step of collecting
18th- and 19th-century buildings from New England and New York in which
to display the Museum’s holdings, relocating 20 historic structures to
Shelburne. These include houses, barns, a meeting house, a one-room
schoolhouse, a lighthouse, a jail, a general store, a covered bridge,
and the 220-foot steamboat Ticonderoga.

Admission is good for two days, which is important since you can't possible see everything you want to see in one trip. Whether you prefer art on a wall, or an old General Store, you can find it at Shelburne.

This is the first two-lane covered bridge we've seen in Vermont, and of course, it was moved here from some place else, like all the exhibits. The signs warn that you must not travel faster than a walking horse on the bridge or pay a $1 fine, an extravagant amount since you could book a luxury room on the Ticonderoga for $3 per night.

We haven't seen large numbers of birds while in Vermont. At a small pond behind a house at Shelburne, we saw birds "flycatching" over the water - swooping down and back into the branches hunting for bugs. A flycatcher? A swallow? We speculated. Finally one landed in the willow tree nearby and we found them to be Cedar Waxwings, which surprised us. Normally, Waxwings are berry eaters, so this is some new behavior we didn't know about. In the morning, we will visit the Green Mountain Audubon Center, then return to Shelburne. They have an enormous circus collection along with other colonial and 19th Century buildings and furnishings. The founder reproduced her home in New York too.

As a wealthy family in the early 1900's, the family had its own private railroad cars to travel up to the farm in Vermont during the summers, much different than the AmTrak we took a few years ago. Dick is waving to all this campaign followers as we explore this fascinating place.

Tuesday, September 01, 2015

OK, there are big mountains all around, and we crossed over the Notch several times yesterday, so today we wanted to go higher. The Stowe Ski Resort has gondolas running all the time, and the nice enclosed car doesn't bother my acrophobia a bit.

In the morning, the fog filled the valley on the other side of the mountain, and you could see the whole range of mountains if you squinted.

The Gondola took us up to 3,625 feet on Mt. Mansfield, but brave climbers could climb up to 4,395 feet. I, of course, declined that opportunity, since most of it was straight up the cliff face!

Even at this elevation, the flowers bloomed profusely, and I saw a butterfly I've never seen before, and haven't identified yet. We met a man from Oregon on the trail whose goal is to visit the tallest point in each state of the country.

The zip line had several brave/foolish people willing to take the 10,000+ foot in total length ride to the base. Not me. Zip lines are second only to skiing in my eyes as the top foolish behaviors people indulge in.

At the bottom of the mountain, is Stowe, VT, a delightful village whose city fathers insure that each building is constructed to look like all the old buildings. Down the road from downtown Stowe, is the Moss Glen Waterfall, and it is absolutely amazing! First are the fields of stunning wildflowers growing in a bog along the trail.

The trail started to rise, and in a few minutes we saw the waterfall, descending 4 or 5 different levels, and the rounded gorge walls shaped by years of flowing water.

Can't resist making a movie of waterfalls!

Truthfully though, the most moooving experience of the trip so far was our tour of the Ben and Jerry's Ice Cream Factory. What a sweet/cold place! We got samples, but then wanted more from the Scoop Shop and had real trouble deciding which flavor to get. My new mantra is "Peace, Love and Ice Cream."